DEATH THROUGH TETANUS

Taranaki Daily News, 1 June 1934, Page 2

DEATH THROUGH TETANUS

CLAIM FOR COMPENSATION. EVIDENCE OF VOCATIONAL RISK. By Telegraph—Press Association. Wellington, May 30. In the tetanus fatality compensation case of Ives v. Leatherfold Ltd., to-day, Dr. Mercer, assistant pathologist at the Wellington public hospital, expressed the definite view that the infection was introduced at the time of the injury. < The plaintiff, Arthur William Ives, a civil servant of Petone, on behalf of himself and his wife, claimed £6OO in respect of the death of his son, Arthur Robert Ives, aged 24, allegedly from tetanus following an injury to his finger while stamping out small zinc plates with a double-ended press. Had anti-tetanic serum been administered within an hour of the accident the probabilities were that the tetanus would have been arrested, said Dr. Mercer. He did not agree that the fact that the accident happened in a leather factory should have made those responsible alive to the possibility of tetanus. He agreed that tetanus was associated, among other things, with leather and leather working. It was also associated with untanned leather. His Honour: “The hides really.” Dr. Mercer: Yes. He said that the injury could be classified as an injury with machinery, and tetanus was a very rare complication of accidents with machinery. This was Said in explanation of his reply to counsel declining to go so far as to say that anti-serum should have been given when the deceased first went to hospital. To His Honour, Dr. Mercer said that had the fact that it was a leather factory been elicited at the time serum should have been given.